14
New Ideas and Improved Methods
By D. J. McLELLAN
O.S.H.D. Can Opener— Or,
"O n The Barrel Head”
The Highway Department uses a
large quantity of 50 gallon steel bar
rels each year for barreling and storing
road oil for patching roads. These bar
rels wear out in time due to unavoidable
rough handling in transporting them
to and from the job. And, as they have
to be burned out at times, the life of
the metal is not too long. The head of
these barrels has to be removed to fa
cilitate quick and easy filling from
tank cars as well as ease of emptying
them. In the past, many hours of hard
labor have been required to remove
the heads by special chisels, cutters, etc.,
used with hand hammers.
A while back the U.S. Army En
gineers published an illustrated article
of a machine for doing a job of this
sort. At the instigation of the mainten
ance engineer, E. A. Collier, and with
suggestions by E. F. Halik, equipment
engineer, Johnny Harnsberger, black
smith foreman and crew, redesigned and
constructed a machine that we be
lieve is A -l. It has been tried out with
the report that it will cut 300 barrels
in about 4/4 hours with a three-man
crew.
Johnny dug around and found an old
hydraulic hoist with pump which was
mounted on a vertical frame fabricated
out of steel channel and plate. The
hoist was mounted in a vertical position
centering over the barrel position. A
small air-cooled gas engine was then
mounted on the base of the machine
and connected to the hoist pump which
is piped to the hoist cylinder. This is
controlled by a hand valve which chan
nels the oil to the proper pipe for low
ering and raising the piston rod which
has the cutter attached to it. The cut
ter is made of steel plate and is made
somewhat like a hole cutting saw used
in cutting holes in sheet metal. It has
teeth like a saw but is pressed into the
barrel head instead of being rotated. A
foot operated self-centering device was
installed on the inside of the legs of
the machine to center and grip the
barrels so they would not be lifted off
the bottom plate and stick to the cut
ter. This saved considerable time.
From all reports this machine is a
great success.
Drafting During the War
During the war, drafting^ was not
all in the hands of the Selective Service
Boards. However it had the edge on
various departments of the state which
required the services of draftsmen they
could not find.
The Hydroelectric C o m m i s s i o n
found itself confronte4 with necessity
of preparing maps and no one to do the
drafting. Goaded by the necessity, the
best maps available from its own files,
or any one’s handy, were secured. Upon
these maps were drawn the necessary
additional lines, figures, etc. The title,
some times printed, other times typed,
was pasted over the title of the original
map.
This was then photostated and then
all the unnecessary lines, letters and
figures of the original map was painted
out of the photostat. The photostat
was then used as a negative and after
oiling it for the sake of better trans
parency, blue line prints were made.
At times the blacked out parts of the
photostat showed up as a white blotch
on the slightly blue-tinted background
prints. In such case, everything between
the border and the map proper was
blocked out, making a pleasing contrast
between the slightly blue cast of the
map and the surrounding white.